People keep conflating name recognition and prestige in this thread. Name recognition for the vast majority of schools is driven by televised sports, not really very useful in determining educational quality.

Georgetown is considered elite yet nobody heard of Georgetown prior to Big East basketball.

Clemson is very well known only because of football. It is a very good but far from elite school.

Bama is known worldwide but is merely good and has to pay to obtain top students.

Name recognition and prestige matter to insecure parents and kids worried about what their friends might think. It has little utility in the real world except maybe to start a conversation. And if that is your goal most of the public is more interested in game day at Bama than what eating club you were in at an Ivy.

All three of the schools mentioned will get excellent results where it matters, grad school admissions and careers.

For careers/employers where schools matter they might not be as strong as ‘target schools’ but they are as strong as most schools for everything else. It’s true that for IB and top consulting that you should look at the Ivy’s, top NESCAC, and a few other schools; but how many jobs are we talking about? For most everything else it’s about education not prestige. People fight about the top school for CS. That may matter for a quant job at a Fintech but SJSU is probably a better path into a FAANG.

For the OP the answer is “all three are excellenot, pick the one which makes your child the happiest”.

I'm from Dallas. I had never heard of Denison until 2022 when a friend's kid was applying there. I had heard of both Franklin & Marshall and Dickinson back when I was applying to schools in the early 1990s.

PP. The mid-career salary data is the right approach.
If you could account for likely regional pay differences, it looks like it doesn't matter which you pick.

At the risk of continuing to appear neurodivergent, I suggested HR as a sample because I assume excellent performance at any of these schools would be sufficient to get a kid into grad school. That leaves "first job" as the most likely point of name recognition leverage.

Unless OP's question is..."What's the best school to help my kid get into grad school based on name recognition rather than student performance?"

I think this thread is just a variant of the "Can you believe someone hasn't heard of School X?" thread.

Who here has heard of Kettering University?

Seeing a trend here. (Auto-correct changed my post.)

Anonymous wrote:Even if you haven’t heard of some schools like Denison, their alumni networks can be surprisingly robust and influential. Here’s is a short list of some notable Denison graduates (in no particular order):

Steve Carell - Actor and comedian
Jennifer Garner - Actress
Michael Eisner - Former CEO of Disney
Terry Jones - Founder and former CEO of Travelocity, chairman of Kayak.com
Carl B. Moellenberg - 14-time Tony Award-winning Broadway & Film Producer (including Death of a Salesman, Dear Evan Hansen)
Alex Moffat - Comedian, Saturday Night Live
Abigail E. Pringle - President of Wendy’s
Ralph Schlosstein - Chairman Emeritus of Evercore & Co-Founder of BlackRock
James Clear - Author of Atomic Habits
David Preschlack - CEO of Main Street Sports Group (formerly with Disney & ESPN)
Jonathan Silverstein - Recognized by Forbes® Magazine as one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world, featured on their “Midas List” seven times
Lisa Stewart McKnight - EVP and Chief Brand Officer, Mattel, Inc.
Bradley D. Blum - Former CEO of Burger King
Joe Banner - Former president of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns
Samuel Armacost - Former president, director, and CEO of BankAmerica Corporation
Richard Lugar - Former U.S. Senator

More here: https://alumni.denison.edu/get-involved/volunteer/council/

I'm sure Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall also have notable lists.

Seeing attend here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ how would you determine whether a school has name recognition or not? Based on what you know? That’s even worse.

From a market research standpoint, you would need to define the sample population you care about and do a survey of a reasonable number of relevant people (hundreds at minimum).

Journalist rankings tend to survey academics because they are more likely to know of more schools vs. a general audience such as college-educated voters.

What you'd ideally want to see is a survey of h.r. executives. The only thing school prestige matters for in the real world is a hiring edge.

It would be expensive to do a survey like that within a region. It would be costlier than state level polling because of the specialized audience.

On a national level I think it's reasonable to assume that many institutions would have low levels of awareness and familiarity outside their region.

Are you looking at name recognition to wow people or to get a good job? What matters is whether your kid will get into grad school if desired or a job that pays well for their field. But again even that matters most on a micro level -- what you want to study and where you want to work and in what kind of job. If your kid wants to get a PhD in Philosophy, who cares what an accounting firm's HR person in the south knows about your school? If you have zero interest in "The Street," is it relevant that some other school has a lot of grads making big bucks on Wall Street? No, of course not.

The more relevant data if you are really worried about getting a job or into grad school (which is not a problem at any of these fine colleges) is actual data from the schools you are interested in attending. You can even refine it by major.

I searched first job and mid career salary data for Humanities Majors (since these are LACs and humanities majors are typically considered low paid) and compared the top ranked of these three LACs (F&M) and a top LAC (Amherst):

First outcomes: National average of graduates having a job or attending grad school within 6 months of graduation is 80%.
F&M: 92% for class of 2024 https://www.fandm.edu/success-beyond-fandm/
Amherst: 90% for Class of 2024 https://careers.amherst.edu/outcomes/

F&M salary for Humanities was $70,300 and $127,900 (from payscale sorted to Humanities)
Amherst, for Humanities, was $71,900 and $135,o00 (from payscale sorted to Humanities)
(for both the averages go up when you include all majors, like tech, finance, etc; both schools use payscale on their own websites tor report salary data for grads.)

So your HR person in Albuquerque may not have heard of either of these schools, but that doesn't seem to be a problem.

FWIW same data search:
Denison was 94%, $65,100, $117,600
Dickinson was 94%, $65,700, $114,700

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ how would you determine whether a school has name recognition or not? Based on what you know? That’s even worse.

From a market research standpoint, you would need to define the sample population you care about and do a survey of a reasonable number of relevant people (hundreds at minimum).

Journalist rankings tend to survey academics because they are more likely to know of more schools vs. a general audience such as college-educated voters.

What you'd ideally want to see is a survey of h.r. executives. The only thing school prestige matters for in the real world is a hiring edge.

It would be expensive to do a survey like that within a region. It would be costlier than state level polling because of the specialized audience.

On a national level I think it's reasonable to assume that many institutions would have low levels of awareness and familiarity outside their region.

You spent all this time typing this out? Are you suggesting OP run a market research survey? You are weirdly invested in this thread which is an informal survey of DCUM. Your attitude reminds me of my autistic DD (whom I love) with your narrow definition of brand recognition and this talk of market research. I believe the point of this thread has gone right over your head.

PP. I'm definitely not autistic, but I'd like to point out that you just took time to take a gratuitous shot at neurodivergent people for no reason (glad you do love your DD though). I admit to being bored enough to hang out on DCUM a lot.

It's kind of sad to watch SLAC fans have the same pointless pissing matches over "how recognized school X is". There are a million threads like this...only rarely with evidence beyond anecdote.

The answer, given infinite money and time to be accurate would be: "Your favorite small school is far less known than you would expect it or hope it to be". The person who said her Ivy League school wasn't recognized is the kind of person you should listen to.

I love the liberal arts and the idea of getting personal attention from profs. I also know it's quite possible to get personal attention from profs at giant state flagships. Because I've done it and others in my family have done it.

A lot of people are overpaying for small schools based on an illusion of reputation/prestige. Caveat emptor.

Even if you haven’t heard of some schools like Denison, their alumni networks can be surprisingly robust and influential. Here’s is a short list of some notable Denison graduates (in no particular order):

Steve Carell - Actor and comedian
Jennifer Garner - Actress
Michael Eisner - Former CEO of Disney
Terry Jones - Founder and former CEO of Travelocity, chairman of Kayak.com
Carl B. Moellenberg - 14-time Tony Award-winning Broadway & Film Producer (including Death of a Salesman, Dear Evan Hansen)
Alex Moffat - Comedian, Saturday Night Live
Abigail E. Pringle - President of Wendy’s
Ralph Schlosstein - Chairman Emeritus of Evercore & Co-Founder of BlackRock
James Clear - Author of Atomic Habits
David Preschlack - CEO of Main Street Sports Group (formerly with Disney & ESPN)
Jonathan Silverstein - Recognized by Forbes® Magazine as one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world, featured on their “Midas List” seven times
Lisa Stewart McKnight - EVP and Chief Brand Officer, Mattel, Inc.
Bradley D. Blum - Former CEO of Burger King
Joe Banner - Former president of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns
Samuel Armacost - Former president, director, and CEO of BankAmerica Corporation
Richard Lugar - Former U.S. Senator

More here: https://alumni.denison.edu/get-involved/volunteer/council/

I'm sure Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall also have notable lists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Sounds like you don’t know local kids who wanted a SLAC. Once you start researching them, these come up. I think F & M might be strongest, but none have huge national recognition. I would not base your school choice on that anyway. What does your kid seek in a residential learning environment?

That's the point. You have to do RESEARCH in SLACs to know about these schools. Literally that means they don't have name recognition otherwise.

I went to an Ivy, and I didn't know of any of these schools until I starting RESEARCHING SLACs for my kids.

so there's your answer, none of them have name recognition. That doesn't mean they aren't great schools. We visited 2 of these and liked them.

That pretty much goes for most SLACS. I had never heard of the 5Cs until a friend from California told me about them. What a neat situation they have! I had never heard of W&L until a kid at our school was recruited for a sport (in-state). LACs generally aren't known as well b/c they don't have sports on the national stage. I went to one of the 3 schools you are referencing and I had never heard of one of them. It's very regional. That doesn't mean the schools aren't great options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Denison but it was a total safety school when I was in college.

Its acceptance rate is about 17% now.

My Denison alum DC is in grad school at HYP now.

I think a lot of Ohioans are moving away from the other Ohio LACs because they got "too liberal" for the red state (Kenyon, Oberlin). That's when Denison's numbers started climbing

oberlin being liberal is not a new thing. they were the first school to send me mail after my sophomore year psat and that is what I remember my parents telling me (I hadn't heard of it before that)- it wasn't said in a terrible way, as my parents were/are quite liberal. they just said it was pretty progressive and artsy.

Anonymous wrote:^^Sounds like you don’t know local kids who wanted a SLAC. Once you start researching them, these come up. I think F & M might be strongest, but none have huge national recognition. I would not base your school choice on that anyway. What does your kid seek in a residential learning environment?

That's the point. You have to do RESEARCH in SLACs to know about these schools. Literally that means they don't have name recognition otherwise.

I went to an Ivy, and I didn't know of any of these schools until I starting RESEARCHING SLACs for my kids.

so there's your answer, none of them have name recognition. That doesn't mean they aren't great schools. We visited 2 of these and liked them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ how would you determine whether a school has name recognition or not? Based on what you know? That’s even worse.

From a market research standpoint, you would need to define the sample population you care about and do a survey of a reasonable number of relevant people (hundreds at minimum).

Journalist rankings tend to survey academics because they are more likely to know of more schools vs. a general audience such as college-educated voters.

What you'd ideally want to see is a survey of h.r. executives. The only thing school prestige matters for in the real world is a hiring edge.

It would be expensive to do a survey like that within a region. It would be costlier than state level polling because of the specialized audience.

On a national level I think it's reasonable to assume that many institutions would have low levels of awareness and familiarity outside their region.

Excellent points.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of any of them. I grew up in NY and NJ and have been in VA and DC for the last 30 years, and I've taught K-12 as well as at a few universities. Never heard those names in my life.

what exactly is your point?

That those colleges have zero name recognition, which is what the OP asked about.

I recognize all of them and so do a lot of other posters on here. I have law partners who went to two of them and a CEO friend who went to the other. When I mentioned my DC was interested in one of them I got a tone of "oh great, you should talk to so and so" responses.

If you think this means they have name recognition you must be the janitor at the firm, you are far too stupid to be a lawyer.

The point is simply the opposite data point of teacher PP saying she's never heard of them. See that?

In other words, rude PP failed to read in context and incorrectly assumed PP was making a point not being made at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of any of them. I grew up in NY and NJ and have been in VA and DC for the last 30 years, and I've taught K-12 as well as at a few universities. Never heard those names in my life.

what exactly is your point?

That those colleges have zero name recognition, which is what the OP asked about.

I recognize all of them and so do a lot of other posters on here. I have law partners who went to two of them and a CEO friend who went to the other. When I mentioned my DC was interested in one of them I got a tone of "oh great, you should talk to so and so" responses.

If you think this means they have name recognition you must be the janitor at the firm, you are far too stupid to be a lawyer.

The point is simply the opposite data point of teacher PP saying she's never heard of them. See that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ how would you determine whether a school has name recognition or not? Based on what you know? That’s even worse.

From a market research standpoint, you would need to define the sample population you care about and do a survey of a reasonable number of relevant people (hundreds at minimum).

Journalist rankings tend to survey academics because they are more likely to know of more schools vs. a general audience such as college-educated voters.

What you'd ideally want to see is a survey of h.r. executives. The only thing school prestige matters for in the real world is a hiring edge.

It would be expensive to do a survey like that within a region. It would be costlier than state level polling because of the specialized audience.

On a national level I think it's reasonable to assume that many institutions would have low levels of awareness and familiarity outside their region.

You spent all this time typing this out? Are you suggesting OP run a market research survey? You are weirdly invested in this thread which is an informal survey of DCUM. Your attitude reminds me of my autistic DD (whom I love) with your narrow definition of brand recognition and this talk of market research. I believe the point of this thread has gone right over your head.